I rather suspect that it will be a quiet day today for Mobile Entertainment.
Not because some calamitous, recession-linked development has afflicted the industry and sent everyone into a fresh malaise, but because Mobile Entertainment had a very raucous evening, drank lots of mojitos, wine and champagne, ate rather more than was good for it, and partied exceptionally hard into the wee small hours at Floridita’s.
Now while the Meffys (for that was the occasion of all the eating/drinking/merrymaking) understandably big up the mobile entertainment industry (Andrew Bud delivered a typically feisty and polished encomium), it struck me, even before the second mojito, that – global recession notwithstanding – the industry had indeed enjoyed some fairly remarkable success stories over the past few months.
Certainly a number of those receiving awards have registered substantial levels of service usage: Turkcell’s “Tone & Win” branded ringback service has picked up more than 200,000 users in a matter of months, while Gameloft – in part buoyed by the success of the Meffy-winning Real Football 2009 – was one of the few leading mobile games publsihers to record both an operating profit and an increase in revenues in 2008 and Q1 2009.
Above and beyond those honoured at the Meffys – yes, I’ll leave the Meffys there, otherwise this blog will morph into a telecoms version of William Hickey’s Diary - Apple has arguably done as much as any company in that period to boost revenues in the sector, and on Monday came the news that its latest model – the iPhone 3GS – had sold over one million handsets in the three days since launch. This not only matched the feat of the iPhone 3G, but was achieved within economic conditions that were far less amenable than those which prevailed during the launch of its predecessor. Meanwhile, I’m still goggling at the fact that the App Store managed to achieve 1 billion downloads in around nine months (a significant proportion of which were paid for) while the global economy was falling off a cliff.
In short, it’s far from doom and gloom for mobile entertainment.
And on an oh-by-the-way basis: the Aberdeen Angus fillet steak at Floridita’s was exquisite. (Oh, I’m back to the Meffys again…)
Tags: App Store, Apple, Gameloft, iPhone 3GS, Meffys, Mobile Entertainment Forum, Turkcell
Perhaps the clearest sign that mobile is weathering the storm us that you all got Aberdeen Angus fillet steak at the Meffy’s dinner. Rubber chicken was the standard back in the good ole days.
I didn’t manage to check out the desert but I agree, the steak at Floridita’s was superb!